


chronic

by ivelostmyspectacles



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Caretaking, Chronic Pain, Friendship, Gen, Injury Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-23
Updated: 2018-02-23
Packaged: 2019-03-23 01:29:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13776801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivelostmyspectacles/pseuds/ivelostmyspectacles
Summary: Noctis’s attention was taken up by the burn in his body, teetering dangerously close to the perils of self-destruction, and he wanted nothing more than tosleep.ie Noct has painyearsafter the marilith attack





	chronic

It started off simple enough. A twinge, like a pulled muscle, a flicker of apprehension and nothing more. It was tolerable. Aches and pains were common after fights and they had been hitting the hunts hard. It registered, and then he dismissed it, and flopped down next to the fire to settle in for a few rounds of Kings Knight.

The night passed. Sunrise came and went. He slept late, until Prompto came to wake him up by wiggling the toe of his sneaker into his side. He rolled over and gotten up and groaned as he did, joints protesting, body aching. He shouldn’t have stayed up so late. Prompto joked about _old man Noct_ and Noct hid his grimace with a smile. Taking a couple of pain meds, more long term than curatives, at this stage was a little less inhibitory than it should have been, and he pretended he didn’t notice the way that Ignis looked at him for just a little too long over breakfast.

“Did you take anything for that?” Gladio asked, later, startling Noct awake from his half doze in the back of the Regalia.

“Huh?” It was as articulate as he could be, given, groggy and confused until he shifted and the twinge came back. It had been steadily progressing the past two days. Less of a twinge than… a nuisance.

“You’re carrying yourself like you’re in pain,” Gladio clarified, eyes narrowing, “and you have been. Did you take anything for it?”

“Oh.” _You’re one to talk,_ he wanted to say, borne of Gladio’s insistence that he never needed a curative no matter what injury he took in battle. But he was tired, and he _was_ in pain. “Yeah,” was the only thing that came out of his mouth, and he shifted a little in the seat to try and get comfortable. It was made difficult that he was being inspected, not only by Gladio, but Prompto as well, and likely Ignis was eyeballing him from the rearview mirror if he wanted to look. He didn’t.

“If you need to stop, better do it now before it gets worse.”

 _And do what?_ There was nothing, and they’d been on the road. He needed a bed that he could stretch out in, somewhere he could relax without a pebble poking all of his wrong spots at havens. Or a bath, especially if it was infused with eucalyptus… but those were things that didn’t bear thinking on. They weren’t in the Crown City. They weren’t in _any_ city, right now. “I’ll take it easy when we get back to town,” he said instead, and gave up trying to find a comfortable position to sit in.

When they settled down for the night, all of their pains for pitching the tent as it started to rain, the pain had expanded from his back and was snaking down into the tops of his thighs. He was soaking wet and uneasy, familiar with the feeling. Sleep had been quick in coming, but hadn’t seemed to want to stay for any long period of time. When he woke up proper in the morning, sunlight straining through the thick canvas of their tent, his heartbeat was pounding in his ears and he was hurting badly enough he didn’t want to move.

Which was a forlorn hope. He couldn’t stay there all day. They had places to be. He had to get up. A painstaking process– literally, even. He forced himself to hands and knees and, any thought of changing clothes asides, crawled out of the tent. He’d barely managed to push himself up to his feet, breathing hard and shaky, certain his legs were shaking badly enough they wouldn’t support his weight, anyway, before Ignis nearly fled the grill to his side to get an arm around him.

“Noct.” Ignis took on most of his weight, and Noctis was practically wheezing from the exertion. “Your back?”

He nodded, once, movements tight and stiff, and allowed Ignis to help him over to sit down. “Y–Yeah… sorry…”

“Something we were afraid of,” Ignis murmured, and still passed a hand beneath the hair at his forehead as though expecting a temperature change. He was in _pain_ , not sick. “It’s been bothering you the past few days.”

It wasn’t a question, but Noctis nodded anyway. “Thought it’d go away… or that it wasn’t _this–_ mm.”

“You should have mentioned sooner.”

“Yeah, sorry…” He was already sounding like a broken record, falling into old habits when this pain rendered him all but useless, and that almost irked him more than the actual recurring ache did. But he really was useless like this.

“Not an actual chastisement, Noct,” Ignis murmured, probably with a wry smile. His hand slipped down to Noctis’s shoulder blade. He tensed; Ignis stilled. “… may I?” he asked after a moment, and Noct forced himself to nod. Ignis especially knew how to take care of him, insofar as how little it could _actually_ be taken care of.

His hands were careful, but insistent, seeking out the worst points of pain and trying to soothe them. Noct couldn’t tell him where to begin. The pain was radiating enough that it had just melded into one extended ache; he couldn’t tell where it began, or where it ended. But at least Ignis’s hand felt nice in the psuedo-massage, one he knew from experience that Ignis wouldn’t take too far in fear of irritating the old injury further.

“We need to get you back to town,” Ignis said as he stepped back. Noct watched blearily as he pulled out his phone. “The others went off on their morning jog, but they can’t be far. Have you taken anything yet today?”

He shook his head, and slumped further over. And then gasped sharply in pain, wanting nothing more than to curl over into himself and wish it away.

Ignis’s hand was instantly on his shoulder again. “You need to be resting, Noct. Laying down.”

Yeah, he knew that. His laughter was forced, but it was something else to focus on. “If I get back in that tent, dunno if I’m gonna get out again. I’m fine.” He sighed, sitting up straight again. Straight-ish. “I can manage,” he amended, because there wasn’t anything else _to_ do.

Ignis left it at that, anyway. “I’ll get you some painkillers. We might have something stronger, if I recall.” Hesitation, and then the words continued. “I… take it curatives still have no effect?”

He shook his head. Not enough to have real effect, but then, nothing really did. Still, he took the proffered pills when Ignis brought them back, and swallowed a few grateful gulps of water. “Thanks.” Carefully, he rest his forehead against his fist and tried to breathe deeply. “Never thought I’d say it, but I miss my physical therapist.” He still had vivid flashbacks to the days after Tenebrae, when he had still been both recuperating and grieving. Getting full mobility back again had been hell. There had been a lot of yelling on his behalf… and a lot of tears. When his sessions were spaced further, and he got older, that had changed, but as a kid going through that… even as the flare-ups had come through adolescence, the necessity for PT when things got bad unnerved him.

“I’m certain we could find one in a larger town,” Ignis was saying. He looked deeper in thought than Noct even was. “Lestallum, perhaps.”

Even then, the talk of it put a trickle of ice water through his veins. Seemed he had never truly gotten used to it.

“Galdin has the spas as well, loathe as you are to that sort of thing…”

“Yeah, I’m not–”

“Noct!” Prompto came running up, jumping up onto the slab of stone where the haven sat. He was flushed and out of breath, bandana turned headband slipping down over his eyes. He pushed it up and sucked in a deep breath. “Are you okay??”

“As okay as I’m gonna be,” he mumbled, and then glanced over his shoulder as Gladio came jogging up. “You didn’t have to come running back, not like I’m going anywhere…”

“Yeah, but…”

“We need to get to town,” Ignis interrupted. “One of the motels at very least, elsewise sleeping outdoors or in the caravans will likely only exacerbate the pain.”

“I’ll get the tent down.”

“I’ll help!”

“You haven’t even had breakfast yet…”

“Ah…” Ignis looked towards the grill. “I’m afraid it’ll take too long to cook, seeing as how I took it off the heat. We’d do better waiting until town.”

“But…” If he had to suffer, it didn’t mean _they_ had to. It wasn’t as if anything was going to fix the problem, even if a soft bed _did_ sound so tempting it nearly made his bones ache from weariness. But he could struggle through for a little while longer.

He would have managed, really, but they weren’t inclined to listen. Granola was passed around and Noct nibbled halfheartedly at his own bar as the others cleared their campsite. He could only watch, and then not watch, allowing his eyes to slip closed to try and focus on anything except the pain. He felt like it was getting worse, and then he felt like it was his imagination.

“Noct.” He opened his eyes. Gladio was standing next to him, chin angled down, although he wasn’t touching his shoulder as though he might have done otherwise. “You can’t walk that far, can you?”

He had been drifting enough to not immediately understand what he was talking about. Then it clicked into place, the Regalia, where Ignis had parked at the designated spot maybe a half mile out from their camp. He tried not to visibly react at the thought, and must have done anyway.

“Yeah, that’s a no,” Gladio said. “It’s gonna hurt, but I’m gonna have to pick you up.”

He was afraid of that, too, but was it like he had another option? He didn’t. Hands curling into fists, he raised his head enough to look around for the others. And then back to Gladio. “Now?” he asked, and cringed at the hesitancy in his voice.

“Yeah. Get you settled.”

A deep breath. He forced himself not to falter, and tried to keep his voice steady. “Not like I have a choice.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll be gentle, Prince Charmless.” He gently ruffled his hair and Noct huffed a dry, nervous laugh. He appreciated the attempt to break the ice, so to speak, but he knew it was going to suck and he wanted to get it over with.

He tried not to tense too badly, and held his breath as Gladio slipped an arm beneath his knees. The other went carefully behind his shoulders and then Gladio paused, looking at him in silent question. Noct nodded, and Gladio lifted.

It was effortlessly smooth– Gladio had told him before he weighed nothing, which he was sure was some sort of an exaggeration but given the way they could team up in battle together had to hold a kernel of truth– but no amount of ease was going to stop the pain from radiating down his spine, something like white hot electricity tearing into his hips and thighs and legs. It sparked at the base of his neck, sent pain flooding into his head.

It really was so much easier to ignore if he wasn’t moving.

Teeth clamped shut didn’t stop the tiniest of moans; he swallowed it down quickly and squeezed his eyes shut as Gladio gave him a moment to adjust.

“Okay?”

He sank his teeth into his lower lip, and turned his face into Gladio’s jacket. “… just go,” he whispered, and neither of them said anything about how thin his voice had gone.

It took some more situating to get him into the car, tucked up in the backseat with his head pillowed on Gladio’s lap. He was almost alarmingly lightheaded at that point, willing to let any of them do whatever so long as it meant he could go to sleep and not have to deal with this. A hand settled on his shoulder securely and there was the lull of Ignis’s accent speaking from the front seat, but Noctis’s attention was taken up by the burn in his body, teetering dangerously close to the perils of self-destruction, and he wanted nothing more than to _sleep._

He was helpless to it. He relished in the cool touch of the breeze against his overheated and aching body as the car started to move. The splotches of darkness beneath his eyelids gave away to an uneasy doze.

 

 

Darkness gave way to the bright light of sunshine and Noctis jolted awake, confusion as to why he was staring at the sky and why it was _moving_ giving way to utter _agony_.

He wasn’t cognizant of the noise that came out of his own mouth, but it must have, because he heard three other voices exclaim at once, and a hand came down to press gently, but firmly, against his chest.

“Stay still,” Gladio said. “You’ll be okay. Everything’s cool.”

It wasn’t, not at all. Unthinkingly, he dragged his hand up from the seat and grabbed ahold of Gladio’s, _squeezing_ at warm, rough fingers and holding on tight.

“There you go. I gotcha. I can take it, don’t worry.” The hand that Noct wasn’t currently squeezing to death came to wipe away at Noct’s tears; he hadn’t even noticed he was crying.

“– car can’t be good for his back–”

“I don’t dare push the speed limit more than I already am. I’m just as worried about Noct as you are, but we must keep level heads–”

“You’re not any more _level_ than I am! You’re as pale as he is!”

“Hey, knock it off.” Gladio’s voice, somewhere above and behind his line of vision. “He’ll go back to sleep if you be quiet.”

“… quite so.”

“I’m just worried…”

“Likewise,” Ignis said softly, a hint of worry in his voice. Except that couldn’t be right. Only a _hint_. That wasn’t the Ignis he knew.

Prompto heaved a sigh. He sounded far away.

Noctis must be drifting again.

 

 

“Noct…?”

He mumbled something, but it was difficult to find the ability to speak. The pain pills had finally kicked in, it seemed like. Gladio and Ignis getting him in from the car had felt like it was going to kill him regardless. He’d been dozing in and out of a nauseous consciousness since then, woken only then by Prompto’s voice at his back.

“Oh, good, I didn’t know if you were awake or not, um.” The slightest press of weight against the side of the mattress, but not enough to jostle it. “Iggy called a doctor and they said moist heat could help so I made you a heating pack. I mean, it’s just some damp towels in a ziploc heated up in the microwave, but…” Prompto trailed off, and then the mattress shifted a little more. “Do you want me to…?”

“Mmmmhmm…” He tried to get the right inflection to his tone. Prompto was trying, and heat really did sound good, nevermind how much he was sweating.

“Okay! Just… let me know if this hurts at all, okay? I’m gonna hold it here for awhile, cause I don’t want you to turn over. If you’re okay with me sitting here.”

He didn’t bother to reply immediately; Prompto took it as tacit permission and sat gingerly on the edge of the mattress. Then, so slowly, that heating pack was pressed up against his back. He held back a hiss from the sensation– not pain, not like that– so that Prompto didn’t pull away. “… thanks,” he said, at length, when he was slumping back into the pillows again.

“Yeah, no prob! Uh.” Prompto paused, and then pushed on. “I… I’m sorry I was being insensitive the other day. I didn’t… didn’t know it was your back. Not that I should have been saying stuff like that anyway, what with the Crystal and everything, but–”

“Huh?” Noct interrupted wearily. He made himself open his eyes. “What’re you talkin’ about…?”

“How you were grumbling when you woke up the other day…”

“Oh…” He breathed out. “‘s funny. ‘Old man Noct…’” It had taken a moment to remember.

“It’s not funny.”

“You’re fine, Prom… don’t care.”

 _“I_ do.”

“You’re forgiven, then,” he mumbled. His eyelids were drooping. He didn’t want Prompto to feel guilty, and accepting his apology whether he needed it or not was probably the quickest, most painless way.

“You’re sure?”

“Uh huh… tired, Prom.”

“Right! I mean, right,” he said, quieter. “I’ll be quiet now. … thanks.”

“You too,” he murmured.

 

 

“Ignis–”

“Here, lean your weight here if you can.” He gestured to the corner where the wall met the counter. His hand slipped beneath Noctis’s elbow. “I won’t let you fall, Noct.”

He swallowed, bracing both hands on the counter. “I know, Specs…” He took a breath and let it out sharply, looking at himself in the mirror. Sweat at his hairline and a faint blush on his cheeks; morning had come with a reprieve in the pain but it was still enough that he’d been forced to accept Ignis’s help to the bathroom. All for the best, although it didn’t stop the embarrassment churning low in his stomach. “Thanks…”

“No need for that. I’ve set some mouthwash there if you want to rinse your mouth. I didn’t figure you’d want to stand long enough to brush.”

His lips twitched as he reached for the glass. “ _You’re_ not making me brush? I must look bad…”

Ignis gave a wan smile in return. “Only for _now_ , Noct.”

He laughed and swished the mouthwash, hating the bite of the taste against his gums but anything was better than the stale taste lingering there. Ignis was rummaging through the drawers, reaching to turn on the tap and then withdrawing. Noctis spit, and turned his attention to him again. “What’re you doin’?”

“Washing your face. Quickly, if possible.” He held up the washcloth in question, but didn't offer it to him.

He couldn’t help but groan a little. His hip slid down a little from where it was braced against the counter. His legs were aching again. Better to get it over with. He nodded slightly. “I could do it, y’know…”

“Of course, Noct, but you know how I feel the overwhelming need to be doing something,” Ignis said, with a little bit more of a smile and something like quiet, and tired, amusement in his eyes.

He waited until Ignis had finished rinsing his face, and then spoke. “You need to sleep, Iggy,” he said quietly.

“I will.”

“I’ll be fine. I’m just gonna sleep more.”

“I’ll rest when Gladio wakes up.”

“Ignis…”

“This isn’t an argument you’ll win, Highness.”

He wanted to sigh, but couldn’t find the energy. Instead he lurched forward to let Ignis help him back to bed. “You’ve never changed, huh.”

“And I suspect I never will, either,” Ignis said cheerfully. “Not on this front.”

Noct laughed breathlessly, although the humor was replaced quickly enough by the sight of the bed, and the trouble that was going to be getting back into it. He wrinkled his nose. Ignis rubbed his arm soothingly. “We’ll manage, Noct. Just a few more seconds.”

“Yeah. I know. I can handle it.”

“We’re here to help as well, lest you forget.”

He smiled faintly and peeled himself away from Ignis’s side. “I know,” he repeated.

How could he forget? They were there at his every turn, as they always were, endlessly patient and willing. He was… grateful.

“… thanks, Iggy,” he mumbled.

“Still no need for that,” Ignis said, and Noctis smiled tightly as he was helped back into the bed.

**Author's Note:**

> I've been meaning to write this for awhile. I still not 100% satisfied with it, and I think I'm gonna come back to work on this chronic pain idea a bit more (and probably with ignoct ngl) for now, I hope this did it justice enough. another topic near and dear to my heart because I've got it too *weak jazzhands*
> 
> anyway more Noct with pain from the attack + the crystal plz there will never be enough


End file.
